Dear Canada: If I Die Before I Wake

Author: Jean Little

I can hardly bear to look at Fanny. She is grey and her breath rasps and gurgles and wheezes. She has lost pounds. Her face is all hollow and a dark colour. A bluish grey. That is one of the symptoms of this Flu, Aunt told us. Nobody is saying the word, but we all know. So many have died, but not my Fan. I will not leave her no matter what anyone says. Fee uses her diary to record all of her fears when the Spanish Flu rages through Toronto. It comforts her when she almost loses her twin sister -- and when it actually takes their older sister Jemma.